We have ALL been there. You’ve been planning, cleaning, organizing and shopping all week and at the last minute one of your guests asks if they can bring a friend. Of course you will say “the more the merrier” for a casual fete but for something more formal, like a sit down dinner, birthday, or holiday, it is absolutely acceptable to gracefully say ‘no’.
In the early years of hosting thanksgiving our table was very much open to the more the merrier attitude as most of us do not travel home for the holiday. As we all know Thanksgiving is one of the more time consuming meals to prepare and as a new host I was going to do my best to do everything I could to knock it out of the park. That included saying ‘yes’ to anyone who wanted to join. That particular year we had a guest count of ten. Then the ten turned to twelve, and then back down to ten, and then up to fifteen. Three of our additional guests were vegan. One guest was vegetarian, and another two ‘might not eat’.
I wound re-shopping and searching for appropriate and delicious vegan side dishes as well as making extra dessert for the ‘just-in-casers’ only to find that not one, or two, but five guests called the day of and told me they weren’t going to be able to make it. At that moment, I realized that I would not treat an event that was so important to me as a casual dinner and would create an experience that felt.
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